


For I Will Sin

by anonlytree



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, M/M, the trashiest kind of crack I'm sorry my brain is such garbage, uh... crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonlytree/pseuds/anonlytree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Absolve me, pater, quia peccabo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anaile20GH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaile20GH/gifts).



Father Gerrard is used to being leered at by 90% of St. Jude mums and an indeterminate number of grandmothers. There are always a few stragglers who insist on accidentally picking up their little darlings from practice 20 minutes early just so they can pretend they have a reason to be there when their favorite priest leads his students in the obligatory warmdown laps after training. He’s constantly donating casseroles and home-baked meringue pies (there’s probably a metaphor in there that would not escape a man not bound by vows of chastity) to the local soup kitchen he runs. It used to amuse the Father at first, as most things about human nature do, but it’s fine, really. He understands the strange allure that comes with the dog collar. He’s heard things in the confessional that would make a merchant marine sailor blush. However, having a tall, dark, and brooding ginger-bearded man who looks like he’s just walked off an Armani catwalk fixating on him with an intense stare from the sidelines while sipping on his tiny espresso is new and strangely unsettling.

Father Lambert had mentioned that they were due a visit from the school’s corporate benefactor - an unintended consequence of Adidas taking an increasingly lucrative interest in St. Jude’s football program. Between admin and pastoral duties, school and church, football practice and blessing 89-year-old Mrs. Martinez’s bookclub with his presence, on top of the time he spends praying, having to entertain sponsors slowly flittered away from the good Father’s attention. With any luck, this visitor is just a stepdad up from the City on a guiltripping Friday school pickup, Father Gerrard thinks. Hopes. His stomach clamps up instantly along with his conscience because every stepparent he’s met at St. Jude so far has been nothing if not anxiously overeager to prove their commitment to their children and most of these people do not have the easiest lives or best upbringings to learn from.

He stops his cantering jog, lowers his eyes towards the newly laid, still fragrant pitch and breathes in deep.

 

_O bone Iesu, exaudi me._

_Intra tua vulnera absconde me._

_Ne permittas me separari a te._

_Ab hoste maligno defende me._

 

When he opens his eyes, the silent spectator is gone. The wind chill closes in into comforting spirals around his hair.

 

 

He wakes up in a cloud of confusion and acid reflux from too much shitty highway rest stop coffee and twists the bed sheets around his shivering body, trying to remember where he is. A hotel like so many others. He blinks and turns on his side towards an empty pillow. A couple of years ago there’d be at least one stranger hogging the comforter on the other side of the bed; he’d become an expert at making a dignified exit without waking him/her/them. A seagull screeches outside his window, bringing him back to the present of this rainy morning. Ah. Right. Up North, where no airline ventures from London and the sky seems twice as gloomy.

His head vibrates with a buzz that’s subdued but unpleasant nonetheless. He’d knocked back a few last night with his greasy pub dinner, but other than an affable bartender unsuccessfully trying to bond over football affiliations, the locals had left him alone with his pint and his Adidas Corporate Citizenship dossier on his tablet. It’s a Saturday morning and technically he’s going to work because his boss hates him but lacks the guts to outright fire him. He’s become a protected species, one nobody makes eye-contact with during board meetings.

Adidas VP Xabier Alonso sluggishly makes his way to the wet window, draws the thick curtains aside with his index finger and scans the waterfront. His chest aches for some decent coffee.

 

 

“Your lad in the team?”

Xabi is startled into mumbling a nondescript “Huh. No.”

The very idea of creating a human being wholly dependent on him makes him freeze where he’s stood by the massive Adidas banner advertising the opening of the regional Youth League. He looks at the mountain of a man still smiling at him with his lined, weathered face and his red and white St. Jude scarf. Wonders if hanging around solo at a Catholic school football match looks suspicious. Concludes he’s lived in London for far too long. The big, friendly grin that still lingers on Scarf Man confirms his findings.

“I tell mine to just enjoy playing with his mates,” says the man, “but Father Gerrard’s got them all worked up. It’s dead competitive, they’d all run through walls for him.”

“Is that him?” Xabi asks with a nod to the tall, blonde, slightly disheveled priest heading towards them. “Nah, that’s just Father Rickie.”

Father Rickie seems to be the anxious type, but is polite and helpful and thanks him profusely for coming all the way to London to see how his company has helped change the lives of so many children from a disadvantaged area and Xabi wishes he’d stop so he does them both a favor and cuts him off just as they take their seats in the main stand.

“I’m supposed to meet Father Gerrard, I believe. Is he joining us for this one?”

“He’s a little busy right now,” says Father Lambert, who’s not at all bad looking from certain angles when he’s smiling.

Then, because the way his head’s cocked towards the pitch doesn’t seem to register with their guests, he adds: “He’s the big Scouser yelling at the lads down there from the sidelines.”

Oh.

 

 

The introductions are brief because Father Gerrard is quite busy going to every disappointed teenager from the rival camp to shake his hand and praise his passing and reassure him that losing 4-1 to St. Jude is quite an achievement given the extra training his students get and in no way jeopardizes his chances of making it at pro level. It all sounds so sincere that Xabi wonders if the good Father’s grasp of the Ten Commandments is always this loose.

“Sorry about that,” he says once he’s back from his tour of the beaten camp. “Mr. Alonso, was it? Hope you enjoyed the game.”

Xabi looks him up and down, from his sweaty, spiky hair to his shining eyes and his form-fitting Adidas tracksuit from the 2013 range that didn’t do so great sales-wise and he’s still waiting for the punchline.

“It was quite… Yes. Very much.”

“You a footie fan?”

“I try to watch Spain when I can find the time, but. I’m sorry,” he says with a downward head shake that does nothing to conceal the grin spreading across his bearded face. “I had no idea footballing priests were a thing.”

“Midfield was my first calling,” Father Gerrard confesses with a crinkly smile of his own.

Xabi coughs to clear his dry throat and buy some time to remind himself what he’s even doing here.

“I was supposed to recruit you for a corporate video we were going to put on our community outreach website, but the film crew’s not coming in until Monday. I had no idea you were uhm…”

“I train the lads 3 times a week. They’ve got music and science classes on Monday, but I’m sure we can work something out,” Father Gerrard says halfway through being reeled into another conversation with excited parents. “In fact, if you don’t mind, Mr. Alonso…”

“Mr. Alonso is my father. Xabi.”

“Right. If you’re free at around 7 we can meet to discuss the project at the Abbey?”

 

 

The pub is small and noisy and smells of aged wood and sour mash. Xabi walks in with small, cautious steps, still unsure of whether he’d misunderstood the invitation to celebrate St. Jude’s first victory of the season or he’s really shit at directions all of a sudden. There’s no mistaking Father Gerrard’s lanky frame standing out above the small cluster of patrons craning their necks up to the TV to watch Carragher and Neville spar over the weekend’s Premier League action. Other than Xabi, he is the only other beer drinker in a suit.

“Do they have any good communion wine on the menu?”

Xabi leans against the counter at a strategic angle where he can get a good look at the good Father’s muscly thighs straddling the bar stool without looking too much like he’s trying to get a good look. He swallows saliva and makes a mental note to never again think of Father Gerrard’s legs straddling anything while he’s standing three inches from him. Or at all. Xabi’s willing to grant himself a dispensation for the shower though. He has a feeling his morning routine is about to be altered for as long as he’s stuck in this town.

“The wafer’s a bit limp so I went with the ale instead,” Father Gerrard says, attractive tanned creases forming around his eyes.

His lovely smile falls off his face when the short promo before the commercial break promises the scoop on Liverpool’s latest mauling at the hands of their bitter rivals.

“Having a crisis of faith?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if I have to take matters into my own hands beyond the regular pre-game prayers. What those lads need is an exorcism.”

“Prayer seems to work for St. Jude just fine. You’ve turned one of the most historically troubled school districts in the county into a success story; quite a lot more to celebrate than that beautiful attacking football you’ve got them playing,” says Xabi, whose stroll around the training grounds the other day had been far more informative than the corporate briefing he’d studied.

"But is this… normal? Celebrating here, I mean. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”

Father Gerrard makes a throaty chuckling sound and this is not a normal thing to notice in the company of a man of faith, it can’t be. And yet.

“Sorry. I was just trying to imagine sixteen centuries of Irish clergy in an abstinent church,” Father Gerrard says, his pretty eyelashes lowered as if asking for penitence.

All of Xabi’s clothes feel tighter all at once.

“A couple of pints aren’t going to get me into trouble, I promise. First you were shocked I play football, now the beer… I must say you have some quaint ideas about church life, Xabier. You do know your folks abolished the Inquisition two centuries ago, right?”

“Forgive me, Father, my experience with priests, at least with those who didn’t buy the outfit off ebay, is – limited, but none of the ones I remember from childhood look anything like you,” says Xabi, intensely studying his pint.

“I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.”

Xabi shoots a shifty glance across the room, does a terrible job of not lingering on Father Gerrard’s lips wrapped around the beer bottle, is utterly without shame about it.

“Gemini.”

“Hmm…?”

“I’m Gemini, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.”

Xabi can’t help the heat creeping up his neck and into his cheeks and he’s grateful for both the beer and the beard providing sufficient cover.

“I’ve been, uh, doing some research actually.”

In fact, there’s a website named _Behind the Collar_ open in a tab on Xabi’s phone right now after he’d spent the afternoon perusing on his hotel bed. He did not get to the top of his profession by being anything but thorough.

“Then I guess you know the church appreciates first-hand experience with human failings.”

“So it’s easier to understand us sinners who are not as strong as you in the face of temptation?”

“Helps to understand ourselves too. Temptation doesn’t ever go away completely.”

“Oh.”

_I really wish you hadn’t licked beer foam off your lower lip when you said that just now._

Xabi realizes he must have said something a bit less dumb out loud because Father Gerrard’s expression switches back to the look of endless patience and radiant goodwill he’d seen him employ on a bunch of disappointed teenagers earlier. Hey, it turns out they’re talking about Adidas’ involvement in his youth football project, a topic he’d had zero real interest in even before all the blood from his brain rushed south from staring too much at a priest’s collar.

“I apologize if this is going to sound presumptuous,” says Father Gerrard “I don’t want to sound like I’m surprised by Adidas’ commitment to this cause, but sending a man of your stature… There must be hundreds of more important things you normally have to deal with before breakfast. So you should know we appreciate the effort beyond the funding and the really nice cleats.”

“I… err,” Xabi reaches instinctively for the right turn of phrase and somehow the string of half-truths, attempts at false modesty and the one big lie that’s poised on the tip of his tongue feel a lot more shameful than the many thoughts about Father Gerrard’s legs in Adidas shorts he’s been entertaining for the past 24 hours.

He takes a deep breath.

“I’m here because my boss hates me. I'm basically in corporate jail.” It’s not much, it’s barely anything, he's only just toeing the line of confessional clichés, but it feels good to breathe it out anyway. “I'm not very… um... Let’s just say my previous involvement in charitable acts has only ever extended to signing checks and breaking up before meeting the family. So I’m expected to fail. Miserably.”

"Guess you were always a Liverpool fan at heart, you just didn't know it."

Father Gerrard smiles, all jaw and stubble and fucking dimples oh, Christ _why_...

 

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been… a really long time since my last confession.

"¡Qué cabrón eres! I should have known it, eh. Since when are you happy to go anywhere North of the M25? I took you to Brighton that one time and you spent the whole night sniffing at the cheap cocktails and hiding in a corner trying to get better wi-fi." 

"Pepe, listen to me..."

"It's like if we put you anywhere with less than five million people and at least three jazz bars on every block you start to get jittery, but put some cute, fresh Irish meat on your plate and suddenly you're all up in that community outreach, ja ja ja ja ja!"

This will go on for a while whether he attempts to interrupt Pepe or not, so Xabi tunes out his lewd, booming laughter that's probably interrupting Adidas employees checking their facebook feeds three offices away and focuses on scrolling through some stills of the day's video shoot playing on his laptop. Pepe is now watching the same footage of Father Gerrard blushing his way through failed interview outtakes and apologizing for his lack of camera awareness.

"Don't worry about it," Xabi had reassured him from behind the guy holding the boom mic. "You're perfect. This is exactly what we need."

Which seemed to have a counterproductive effect on Father Gerrard as he just blushed harder and was immensely relieved to move on to showing off his pupils' passing skills out on the school pitch. Xabi has only gone through the footage once, but he's going to threaten the editor with bodily harm if any of the shots of Father Gerrard's luminous smile when discussing how much football means to the kids should end up on the cutting room floor.

"...plus his _accent_ , madre mia... We're gonna need subtitles, hombre. Tell me... Have you bought a school uniform yet? You might be a little old for his taste."

"Fuck off, Pepe! I'm hanging up. Adios."

"Bro, you called _me_!"

"Yes, but that was a mistake. I need to talk to a grownup."

"In _this_ business? Good one."

"I need a grownup who still enjoys access to parts of the business I've been cut off from."

"No. Whatever it is, the answer is NO. I'm not going down with you because you're suddenly in your head version of Don Quixote and are writing crazy internal memos that make the people who pay me uncomfortable. I have children to feed..."

"I know. That's why I'm only asking you for a phone number, your name will never be involved."

"Not Simmons!"

"Yes Simmons. He owes me a favor, I'm calling it. Just text me his private number, OK?"

"This is a bad idea."  
  
"Love you too, _ama_. Text me!"

 

~

 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been… a really long time since my last confession. I don’t believe in God, I suppose I should come clean about that first.”

“I get that all the time.”

“Oh.”

Xabi's not sure if he expected Father Gerrard to sound at least nominally surprised upon hearing his voice from behind the flimsy lattice of the confessional window, but it's too late to back down now. At least the small enclosed space is not the claustrophobic wooden box of his childhood but a room nestled inside the thick walls of St. Jude's chapel and Tuesday is an unpopular choice for ceremonial guilt-tripping. They're the only two souls in the whole church. 

The air inside smells of dry river stone and Father Gerrard's shaving soap.

“It’s mostly people who are too cheap to pay for a shrink when they need to talk to someone who’ll listen,” Father Gerrard says.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you, Father.”

“I’m here to listen to all God’s children, even the lost ones.”

“Is that why you chose St. Jude as your congregation? The patron saint of lost causes…”

lf only grandma Mertxe could hear him now. She'd probably suspect demonic possession from the one grandchild who could be relied on to fuck up the Credo every single time, come to think about it. 

“I’m a lifelong Liverpool supporter, I suppose I just can’t help it. Tell you what, if I can make it easier on your conscience, we can do a quid pro quo.”

“Hmm. What can I do for you?”

“This kid on my foundation’s team, Raheem… 17 years old, cleanest one-touch flicks I’ve seen in my life, incredible football brain for his age, got local football academies sniffing around him. He’s also got three kids already. That I know of.”

“Either very Catholic or not Catholic at all.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve tried. He doesn’t have any male figure in his life to straighten him out outside a football pitch and I’m… uhm… the amount of advice I can give him in certain respects without him laughing his arse off is - limited.”

“You want _me_ to preach abstinence?”

Xabi's glad to be on his knees and for once it's because he doesn't think he could get through this while standing upright.

"You have… more options than I do.”

“Father Gerrard! What would the Pope say?!?”

“The Lord hasn’t put a brain between our ears just to keep them balanced, that’s what me gran used to say. I do believe He wants us to use our freedom of choice to do good in the world, beyond the Church’s definition of it. If that makes me a pick-and-choose-Catholic, so be it.”

“Deal,” says Xabi, as matter of fact as any man on his knees can be. 

”?”

“Young Raheem will be… if not chaste, at least supplied with as many boxes of condoms as he can fit in his locker.”

“Now, about those sins…”

Xabi bites his lip. He can glimpse Father Gerrard's profile through the grill but still feels the need to look away.

“I’m not a good man, Father.”

“Are you sure you’re the one to judge that?” Father Gerrard asks, voice unbearably soft. 

“Yes, I think so. I’m driven by my urges, I… _want_. And what I want, I get. Only this time - I'm not sure it's... This person is too good for me, would have too much to lose and I know I don't have the right to...” his jaw has suddenly decided to no longer work and Xabi rolls over on his butt, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his back against the cold stone in an attempt to hide from that small window separating him from Father Gerrard's eyes. "It would be easier if I thought this person wants nothing to do with me and, you know... not to sound conceited, but there are ways to look at somebody that mean exactly _the opposite_ of that..."

There's nothing but silence from the other side of the grill.

 _Dios_ , Xabi thinks, not that he's not self-aware enough to not also think that this is so fucking stupid and maybe even think _who the hell ARE you?_ His knees sting and his throat burns for any alcohol that's not red wine.

"Anyway. This isn't. I didn't... I came here to talk to you about something else. I'm no expert but your team is too good for this league."

"That's very flattering, but you've only seen one game."

Is that a note of relief at his cowardly change of subject? Xabi can't tell.

"I've seen how hard everyone works to please you, and the passion these kids have for the game and I think, bueno... I've discussed this with my colleagues and we'd like to see what Saint Jude's boys can do in a tournament in Spain."

"Kick yer tikitaka arses, that's what they'd do but... Xabi, most of these lads haven't even been to Anfield," Father Gerrard says and Xabi gets a little stuck on the breathless shape of his name in his mouth, "...let alone abroad. I'm sure their parents will be buzzing to see them go, but - I don't think most of them even know what a passport looks like."

"The Donosti Cup's not for another six weeks and Adidas sponsors enough causes dear to the Home Office to have all paperwork sorted by then, leave it to me. I'm putting you in charge of the home front," Xabi says, fighting an intense urge to get up and pace the tiny premises like he hasn't done in front of his desk for about half a decade.

At least he can breathe again.

"From what I've seen, you've got the mothers eating out of the palm of your hand, can't be that hard," he adds with a smirk. "I have to go back to London tonight, but... we'll be in touch."

"This is... It's kind of a wonderfully generous thing to do for someone who's such a terrible human being," Father Gerrard says, a little choked up and a lot sounding like he's grinning ear to ear.

Xabi stops fiddling with the leather strap of his watch for a moment and feels extra ridiculous but what the hell.

"About Anfield..."

 

~

 

“Where did they tell you they were sending you before they shipped you off from London on this gig? Winterfell?”

Xabi's face is blank but inside he's a) making a mental note to never introduce him to his friend Álvaro because he couldn't stand another sermon about that fucking show and b) fretting.

“Am I under dressed? I thought... Um, it is 100% Aran fleece from a family woolhouse in the Hebrides, their online store has a six months waiting list because the sheep are more like their children and cannot be stressed out - but I can run back to the hotel to change if you…”

“Nah, you’re a’right…”

“Oh. OK.”

“You look very - of the people. We’ll have to get you a bowl of scouse somewhere around Anfield after the game.”

“I’ll try anything once,” says Adidas VP Xabier Alonso, forcefully shoving his hands in his well worn jeans pockets to stop himself from bouncing up and down on his heels.

“Hang on a sec, just stay put, OK?” Father Gerrard tells him when they arrive outside the Shankly Gates. He disappears among the crowd towards the souvenir stands.

Xabi nods with a little confused frown, but stays behind watching Father Lambert and the seminarians as they shepherd St. Jude’s Year 7 students through the gates on their Adidas sponsored trip to the Kop. They’re almost out of sight when he feels the swish of a white and red scarf wrapped around his neck.

“There. Now you’re not under dressed anymore,” Father Gerrard says, running his fingers along the knot to smooth it down.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've suffered SO much because of his stupid fucking sweater, you have no idea...  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [insert words when it's not 5am and brain isn't dying.]

He should be on his knees. It feels - inappropriate to be doing this in a hotel room. Hotel balcony, technically. Father Gerrard is leaning over the railing, squinting into the cloudy horizon as the Cantabrian sea breeze flattens his unruly fringe down on his forehead. 

“I am very sorry about the… living arrangements,” says Adidas VP Xabier Alonso, knuckles gone white from the casualness with which he grips the metal of the balcony railing. He lets his hands absorb the brunt of the constant buzz running through his body since he's picked him up from the airport and settles in to watch the sea next to Saint Jude’s spiritual shepherd. 

“The Swiss chocolates on the pillow are _toffee_ ,” Father Gerrard says with a little frown. “An unfortunate choice. I would have preferred mint, but I suppose we’ll let this one slide. This time.” 

Xabi swallows hard at the way the good Father’s mouth‘s goes up into a cheeky smile. Still. This is not... optimal. It's actually pure fucking torture already and they haven't even unpacked their toothbrushes. 

“My PA was very specific about the number of children who would share rooms and the private bedrooms for the grownups, but it’s high season. For what it's worth, I’ve made it clear to the hotel manager that Adidas’ procuring department will not be impressed.”

“I’ve made it through four years of rooming with Lambert in the seminary, I think I’ll survive 3 nights in this posh suite. So long as you don’t snore.”

Xabi mumbles some weak reassurances, but it’s not Father Gerrard’s survival that worries him. 

"I'll let you uh... unpack," he beats a hasty retreat to the hotel bar so as to avoid dwelling too much on whether the Vatican has a pajama dress code or not. 

 

Xabi needs a plan. Strictly speaking, he has a plan already. What he needs is a new plan, one that doesn't suck. Showing up at his mother's door in the middle of the night would require more explaining than he's capable of without a bottle of something Scottish and mind numbing, so that's out of the question. Spending a second night on the beach till 2am then sneaking back into the room and tiptoeing to the bathroom to change and slink under the covers _seemed_ like a good plan. As long as he squeezed his eyes shut and pretended he was in one of their monthly strategy meetings playing battleships with Pepe on their phones every time the words "holistic approach", "authoritative leverage" or "collaborative synergy" popped up, he'd be fine. He'd have to fall asleep eventually, it's not like he couldn't tune out the sound of Father Gerrard breathing peacefully in the bed across from his. So Plan A might have failed but there was potential for success at least. 

Until he heard Father Gerrard's sheets rustling as he tossed in them, mumbling softly, and then Xabi's eyes kind of opened of their own accord, which was a terrible move. The man two feet across from him has now turned on his belly to slide a tanned arm under his pillow and kick the bed covers down his legs. T-shirt and boxers. Well. Okay. Hips wriggling a little until he settles in a comfortable position with a deep sigh. _Puta madre_. There's far too much fucking moonlight in this room and it's affording Xabi too much visibility from the mess of spiky hair flying in all directions from the pillow, to Father Gerrard's broad back stretched out in front of him. Of course his white t-shirt is riding up a little, of course. Just enough for a patch of skin on his lower back to make an appearance. Xabi can't hold back a quiet little whine. He wants to do a couple of things to that warm skin and only _one_ of those things involves running the tip of his tongue down the length of Father Gerrard's spine and that's exactly his problem. He also feels a deeply compelling need to pull that shirt down and maybe wrap his own body around Father Gerrard's sleeping form. Because. Um... him catching a cold would be terrible for team morale. _That_ is the truly unbearable part, the part his right hand can't fix, the part he's had six weeks and way too many "Uhm... just a few details I wanted to discuss" phone calls to contemplate. 

Xabi falls asleep at dawn and wakes up exhausted next to an empty bed.

 

 

The football is a welcome relief. He can pretend he’s busy talking to the tournament organizers while Father Gerrard is off scouting the opposition and drawing up tactical plans. Xabi almost wishes St. Jude didn’t destroy both the Swedish team and Alaves’ _alevin_ boys because that makes the celebratory dinner inevitable so here he is, having to listen to the tournament director bitch at him for failing to show off the town’s many eateries to their guests. 

Father Lambert excuses himself before they hit their first pintxo bar and Xabi’s pretty sure lying about a headache goes against the job description, but he’s hardly the one to talk. 

“Rickie’s been sober for three weeks,” Father Gerrard says, swishing the crisp Getaria wine around his glass, “it’s best if he’s not surrounded by temptation quite so soon.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t...”

Xabi feels deeply for Father Lambert, wishes he could do a runner instead of watching Father Gerrard’s throat moving to swallow a baby squid he’d picked off a skewer. He’s dressed in black as usual, but there’s no trace of the white collar after hours and if he doesn’t stop fucking glowing like this soon the various bar punters already eyeing him are going to start inching closer to ask him if he comes here often. _Hostia._

“No worries,” Father Gerrard reassures him, lips glistening with grease. “An evening of prayer will do him good... Dear God! This stuff’s as divine as I remember,” he says after a long wine sip during which Xabi can look at nothing else but his pretty eyelashes lowered in delight. 

Father Gerrard swivels towards the bartender and asks for another in grammatically impeccable Spanish. 

“You’ve been here before?...”

“Just passing through after a prayer retreat at the Loiola Sanctuary.”

 _Jesuits are supposed to be freaks_ , Xabi thinks, _how did I not see this coming?_

“I met your boss once, you know,” he says, careful to look away because it sure looks like Father Gerrard is studying the dark circles under his eyes, the sloppy, half undone tie knot, and the way his shoulders slouch under the strain of sleeplessness and the fucking... thoughts rattling around his skull for more than six weeks now. “In Rome. I was part of a delegation at the Vatican.”

“Oh. He’s not my boss, he’s more of a... CEO. The big boss likes to delegate a lot.”

“We should all be so lucky,” Xabi can’t suppress his bitter chuckle into his wine glass.

“Why are you really here, Xabi? Why are you doing all of this?” Father Gerrard asks, his voice warm and a little concerned and his clear eyes trained on Xabi. “When we talked on the phone, I’ve often felt you wanted to tell me something, to just... talk to someone. You don’t have to say anything if it’s too personal, I just... Are you alright?”

“My boss was running a slush fund used for kickbacks and, occasionally, to buy jewelry for his mistress,” he says on a quick exhale. This isn’t even close to being what’s keeping Xabi up at night, but Father Gerrard’s tender concern makes him panicky so he has to say _something.  
_

_“_ It was... bad. So bad that an FCPA investigation could have led to everything collapsing on a lot of innocent people’s heads, so. I was the whistleblower who got him fired. Quietly. Handled internally. On the one hand, nobody trusts me anymore, I’m a sort of... protected species now, kept in a little aquarium. On the other - I blackmailed my ex boss’ boss to use the rest of the money for “community outreach” so... Cheers!” 

Xabi downs his own wine realizing that even though he’d lied by omission, it still felt good to actually talk to someone. Huh. 

“What an _awful_ human being you are,” Father Gerrard says with an unbearably tentative smile. 

They walk towards the hole in the wall fish restaurant in the old port and all the way back because Xabi can't charm their way in without a reservation. He'd be livid and having an(other) existential crisis if only he weren't so tired. Besides, the sausage fried in cider is plentiful at stands around the market square, so they eat their dinner standing, sipping cider and watching a procession of locals dressed as fishermen and fishmongers parade to the beat of drums and assorted brass instruments.

They get back to the hotel at an unreasonable hour and Xabi freezes in front of the elevator and pretends he has to make a phone call. Father Gerrard says goodnight, looking uncharacteristically distracted.

"Xabi?"

He spins on his heels under a surge of panic. Father Gerrard's arm is keeping the elevator door from closing.

"Thanks for the tour. You have a lovely town. Thank you for sharing it with us."

Xabi blinks, nods, blinks some more. Walks out with rushed, giant strides. He could buy a bottle of wine from the booze shop and go down to the beach for the second night straight or go back in town and get blind drunk on Kalimotxo in some student dive. He still feels like a loser for choosing Plan C and going for a night swim at high tide, but at least his head's a bit clearer and his back muscles burn with the satisfaction of physical exhaustion.

His heart settles down when he does not in fact walk in on Father Gerrard praying on his knees at the foot of his bed, in nothing but his boxers. That had been a valid concern on his way from the beach. Luckily, he's asleep curled up in the middle of the bed and Xabi pulls the duvet up on his bare arm on his way to the bathroom.

Once most of the sea salt is washed off his skin he falls into his own bed and sinks into the mattress under the weight of the stone sitting on his chest.

 

Xabi sighs in his dream. He's resigned and powerless and maybe just a little unwilling to stop it. It's almost dawn but not quite in his dream. He can feel the twisted, overheated bed sheets under him. He should probably open his eyes to check that he's not being loud and disturbing his roommate's sleep, but if he did that Father Gerrard's hand caressing Xabi's thigh under his boxers would be gone. He doesn't want it to go anywhere but up. It's stupid that he's still wearing underwear in his dream, he thinks, chastising his brain as the bed shifts with added weight. His brain seems to respond because his shirt is lifted half way up his torso and... this is new. There are two hands on him now, there are fingers trailing through the hair on his chest, making their way down. There's warm breath on his stomach and someone nosing around his bellybutton and causing a fresh surge of heat to his groin. Oh. The hand on his thigh stills and comes up to circle around Xabi's wrist, pulling his hand away from his dick with a gentle but firm tug. He makes a pathetic little mewling sound because he's so hard he can't even stand it, and is more deprivation really necessary anyway? Getting caught with your hand down your pants in your dreams must be a new low, Xabi thinks, trying to blame it on the overload of stimuli he's been subjected to over the last two nights. 

He's usually on his knees at times like these, sucking Father Gerrard all the way in or at the very least jerking him off against the sacristy wall until he screams Xabi's name to the heavens. But this is nice too.

Then Father Gerrard pulls down his boxers just enough so he can bite Xabi's hipbone and Xabi's eyes fly open and his heart stops then starts again at an increasingly agitated rate. He doesn't have to turn his head towards the bed across from his to know there's no head resting on that pillow because he'd already done it earlier and maybe moaned out a name and maybe seemed a bit more awake than he actually was, but he's definitely awake now and fuck no, he's not stopping this, he can't, he won't. _Shit!_ The little kisses dotted along the edge of his boxers stop and Xabi is no longer staring at Father Gerrard's bedhead hair but straight into his eyes - warm, dark, pleading. 

"Nghhhhhd..." Xabi says, having almost said _Oh God_!

Fa... OK, once the guy's mouth is practically on your dick, Xabi reasons, maybe it's time to start thinking of him as Steven. _Steven_ \- fuckfuckfuckfuck - has stopped petting or kissing or biting Xabi. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no, you're not scaring him off now, _hijoputa_ , fucking say something to make him stay! 

Xabi's mouth stays clamped shut, which is probably for the better. With a flash of inspiration mixed with desperation, he grabs Steven's hand off the sheet and squeezes his fingers. He gets Steven's other hand on his cock in return so hooray for nonverbal communication. Xabi's mouth opens with a dry gasp as his boxers are pushed down over his thighs and Steven wraps his fingers around his hardon. He's a little unsure at first, but the sounds Xabi makes seem to spur him on on each hard stroke, like he's remembering something he's never quite managed to forget. 

It's so rough and so good and he's _so_ close. Xabi shouldn't be thinking about how if this is the only time he gets to experience this he _needs_ to make it last, but then Steven pulls his legs wider apart and starts kissing down from his hip, and now that's all Xabi can think of and it makes his chest cave in on itself.

Steven looks up at him, his lips red and his breathing labored, grabs Xabi's hand to steady himself, either of them or both, and takes him in his mouth.

 

 

Xabi checks his phone against the hotel clock three times, considers googling _What time is it in Spain right now?_ before he's ready to concede that he has indeed slept until 2 pm. He walks down to the beach in a daze. The buttons on his navy shirt are done up wrong making the collar hang at an awkward angle. He sits in a shady spot by the rocks, waiting for the tide to go out.

 

"Sleep well?" Father Gerrard asks, crouching down to his level before he sits down at a comfortable two mates at the beach kind of distance.

Xabi looks down to his feet buried in the sand. This is it, this is his out. If he says the right thing, it was all a dream. Truth be told, the way his limbs refused to budge off the mattress afterwards, immobilized by the warmth spreading through his body, the weight of his eyelids he just couldn't fight as he tried to watch Steven close the bathroom door behind him... It could have been a dream.

He doesn't want to say the right thing.

"I'm not here to save your soul," says Father Gerrard, so there's that. He's wearing the St. Jude track suit though he's lost the jacket somewhere on his way to the beach and the wind is blowing his baggy t-shirt in all directions, along with his hair. "You can let me worry about my own perdition."

"I didn't think you..."

That's as far as Xabi can go because he doesn't even know what he didn't think. _Give amazing blowjobs, sloppy technique notwithstanding? That you wanted me?_ Hoping and knowing are two different things so. Fuck it.

"I lived a year on the South coast here, place near Cádiz." Xabi's head snaps up. He congratulates himself on tearing his eyes away from St... Father Gerrard's mouth. The man can't grow a decent beard to save his life, but the stubble is something else, as the rash he still has from his dream can attest.

"When?" Xabi asks once his brain catches up.

"Some of us get a year off after seminary to live in the world while you discern your vocation. A sort of gap year, if you will. Rickie felt ready, so he got ordained while my best friend Danny and I did mission work and taught Scouse to Gaditano youths. It wasn't all from the goodness of our hearts, those five aside games on the beach sharpened our passing skills." He scans the waves of this colder sea and gives it a wistful smile. "Danny and I needed that time for reflection more than most, there's a point past which no St. Ignatius prayer can cover up for getting butterflies in your stomach when you're around your best friend. So once we realized we both felt the same, we had to make a choice. Danny said we could fool ourselves, but there was no way to fool God and I guess I went along with it because I was 21 and in love and it turned out sex was pretty great."

  
 Xabi would blush but it's much too late for that. 

"We flew back to England and he called me a week later to tell me he'd talked to his adviser and they think they can still purge his soul of this wretchedness. I guess that didn't work out for him, so he found an alternative - he left the Church a year later, got married, has three kids."

"But you didn't feel the need to be um... purged?"

"All I wanted for the first few months was to never ever feel that devastated again and the rest just kind of... sorted itself out. I could still help people from within the only family and the only home I had."

"Score one for God," Xabi mumbles then catches himself, but it's too late. Father Gerrard is already smiling. "Sorry."

"Not today. Got our arses kicked in the semis - we managed one glorious shot on target in 93 minutes."

"Against the Frenchies?!?"

Father Gerrard's head drops to his chest, though his grin is anything but penitent.

"I'm sorry I missed it. I was... You know."

"Yeah."

They watch the afternoon joggers, the families with strollers and the tennis ball chewing dogs with sand matted in their fur pass them by.

"I still don't feel wretched," Father Gerrard says after a while. "Maybe I'm supposed to, I broke an oath this time. But I didn't want you to think it was a lapse or something I'd blame you for - I have to figure it out with the boss himself. It's just... four hundred years ago, I'd have had to swear to torture and burn heretics to be able to serve God, but I like to think I would have broken that promise too."

Xabi leans over and presses his lips against Father Gerrard's mouth because if he got off with a man he's never called by his first name, the least he can do is kiss him this once.

"What about now?"

Father Gerrard looks thoughtful, as if assessing wretchedness levels takes some serious concentration. His palm comes up to the back of Xabi's neck and he pulls him in for a serious kiss, wet and hungry and long. He lets go, licks his lips.

"Still not hating it."

"We can do better than that," Xabi says, trying to sound offended. With no final to play they have the whole afternoon to try.

 

 

The End

 

 

"I'd have made a good Jesuit. Back in the day."

"What day was that?"

"Back when you guys were cool and wore swords and skewered Protestants while teaching them rhetoric and Latin poetry or whatever. Loiola's just around the mountain here, I could have been in with the clique."

"..."

"I'm just saying..."

"We need to go back to keeping your mouth busy."

**Author's Note:**

> I know. I KNOW. But it's Anaile20GH's birthday (tomorrow) and tradition is tradition. Happy Birthday, querida!


End file.
